Kolkata: The hospital has been home for 48-year-old Gopal Patra for the past 12 years. Abandoned by family and bedridden, Patra has not stepped out of his ward in RG Kar Medical College & Hospital (RGKMCH) for 12 years. But this Durga puja, a group of junior doctors took him to a Durga puja pandal, ending his 12-year cut-off from the rest of the world.The resident of Hamirpur village in West Medinipur used to work as a truck cleaner. A road accident on Oct 29, 2014, turned his life upside down. He sustained a near-fatal injury while transporting coal from Haldia to Durgapur when the truck collided with another.He lost both his legs in the accident as doctors at RGKMCH had to amputate them from below the knees to save his life. His left arm also suffered severe muscle contracture. Even as Patra survived the injury and recovered after several months, no family person came back to the hospital to take him home.Sources in the hospital said that Patra was a widower as he lost his wife in 1993 and the couple had no children. After the accident, his two nephews visited him once or twice, but the visits stopped. Since nobody came to take him back home, the hospital administration made him stay in the casualty block observation ward. This ward was later shifted from the emergency building to the surgery building; he found a permanent home there.This puja, junior doctors Trinesh Mondal, Gairik Roy, and Shruti Singh—postgraduate trainee (PGT) doctors in general surgery—decided to take him to a puja pandal nearby. On Maha Asthami, the trio were on OPD duty where patient load was very light. Taking the opportunity, they roped in hospital staff member Gautam to take Patra out to visit a pandal in a wheelchair.“This single day of joy after 12 years of hospital confinement might not erase all his pain. But even if it was for a single-day outing we tried our best to make him see to make him feel the festive vibe,” said Trinesh Mondal.Patra said that the doctors and nurses in his ward have become his and that some of them came forward to take him out during the Durga Puja had added to his happiness.
